The widespread acceptance of disposable aluminum containers or cans by the international beverage market has developed a secondary industry devoted to the recovery of the aluminum contents of disposed cans. Various approaches to this recovery have been undertaken, for example commercial municipal waste treatment companies have found it profitable to employ "pickers" to remove the cans as they pass along inspection conveyors. Similarly, volunteer non-profit organizations have been observed to establish community collection points and the like for the cans whereupon they are delivered and sold to reprocessors. A growing interest in developing, however, on the part of commercial food and beverage service entities such as restaurants and bars, the operators of which now find it profitable to recover cans used in their business for sale ultimately to aluminum production entities.
Because the used cans are light and in larger numbers represent a very large volume, they must be crushed prior to shipment to aluminum processors. Generally, those can crushing devices which have been available have been of a variety employed by larger waste treatment facilities and usually are constituted as large, highly powered machines representing a significant capital investment. However, the need for an effective crushing device has expanded to the above-noted food and beverage service field and, in this regard, a need has arisen for a crushing device which is counter-mounted and may be used by service establishment employees. For the most part, the relatively small crushers currently employed for such use have resembled home trash compactors wherein a door on the compactor is opened, the cans are deposited therein, the door is closed, a button is pushed, and a jack screw driven element is actuated to crush the deposited cans. As is apparent, the use of such devices is somewhat labor intensive, requiring several movements on the part of the employee and necessitating a relatively extended interval of time to carry out the actual crushing procedure. Further, such screw driven machines are undesirably noisey and their cost is relatively high. In the latter regard, statistically some of the cans will be partially or totally full of beverage, thus, the compactor type crusher devices must have an enhanced power capability, inasmuch as the compression required to crush liquid containing cans is quite considerable.
Of course, with all such devices, ergometric or human factor design considerations become important. The structure of the crusher must be such that the human hand or arm cannot possibly be injured by the device. Such ergometric requirements generally have been found to engender higher machine costs and contribute to the earlier noted labor intensive aspects of conventional crushing machines.